My Best Science Fiction Story Read online

  Table of Contents

  MY BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORY

  Introduction

  WHY I SELECTED ROBOT AL 76 GOES ASTRAY

  Robot Al 76 Goes Astray - Isaac Asimov

  Grief of Bagdad - Arthur K. Barnes

  WHY I SELECTED THE TEACHER FROM MARS

  The Teacher From Mars - Eando Binder

  WHY I SELECTED ALMOST HUMAN

  Almost Human - Robert Bloch

  Zero Hour - Ray Bradbury

  Nothing Sirius - Fredric Brown

  WHY I SELECTED BLINDNESS

  Blindness - John W. Campbell, Jr.

  Visiting Yokel - Cleve Cartmill

  The Hibited Man - L. Sprague de Camp CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  The Thing in the Pond - Paul Ernst

  Wanderer of Time - John Russell Fearn The Story

  WHY I SELECTED THE INN OUTSIDE THE WORLD

  The Inn Outside The World - Edmond Hamilton

  The Professor Was a Thief - L. Ron Hubbard Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  WHY I SELECTED DON’T LOOK NOW

  Don’t Look Now - Henry Kuttner

  Why I Selected The Green Hills of Earth

  The Green Hills of Earth - Robert A. Heinlein 1

  2

  WHY I SELECTED THE LOST RACE

  The Lost Race - Murray Leinster

  The House of Rising Winds - Frank Belknap Long

  The Carriers - Sam Merwin, Jr.

  WHY I SELECTED DR. GRIMSHAW’S SANITARIUM

  Dr. Grimshaw’s Sanitarium - Fletcher Pratt

  The Uncharted Isle - Clark Ashton Smith

  Thunder and Roses - Theodore Sturgeon

  WHY I SELECTED THE ULTIMATE CATALYST

  The Ultimate Catalyst - John Taine

  WHY I SELECTED PROJECT SPACESHIP

  Project Spaceship - A. E. van Vogt

  WHY I SELECTED SPACE STATION NO. 1

  Space Station No. 1 - Manly Wade Wellman

  WHY I SELECTED STAR BRIGHT

  Star Bright - Jack Williamson

  The top science fiction authors choose the best stories they ever wrote

  MY BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORY

  As selected by 25 OUTSTANDING AUTHORS

  Edited by

  LEO MARGULIES and OSCAR J. FRIEND

  Merlin Press edition published November, 1949

  2 PRINTINGS

  Copyright, 1949, by Merlin Press, Inc.

  Printed in the U. S. A.

  Introduction

  Virtually all of the science fiction anthologies compiled to date have been constructed around specific editorial slants. They have been concerned—to cite examples—with invasion of Earth by alien entities, with the future development (highly speculative) of mankind and his civilizations and sciences, with the birth and flowering and/or death of various cultures from robots to mutants, with time travel, with possible life on other planets and solar systems, with conquest by man of the Universe. Ad infinitum. In each case the editor has, of course, selected only stories dealing with his chosen topic.

  This book is different. Here is a volume with 25 editorial slants—one for each of the stories. For the authors themselves are the selectors of the material and the only restriction we, the editors, imposed was that the stories should be outstanding science fiction. Thus, each author has chosen from his own files the story he believes to be the best he has written. He has offered it along with a brief explanation of why. Furthermore, although this selection was made a few years ago, and though the various authors have spent their time since in successful production of more science fiction, almost all of them still believe the tale they picked for this anthology remains their best. At least, it remains their favorite.

  All of which (you may think) has made the role of anthologizers easy. Since the authors did it all, our chore was simply to see that you, the reader, got the opportunity to buy these stories. Would, indeed, that this were so!

  Instead, we had the frightening task of selecting only twelve stories from the personal selections of twenty-five of the top science fiction authors of our time. Far easier to be judges of baby and beauty contests.

  However, we think we have in this volume some of the best stories ever written by a brilliant group of gifted authors. Each story is prefaced by an explanatory note from its contributor which you will find far more interesting and informative than the usual editorial comments by editors. So, please turn the page and get right into the very cream of science fiction.

  LEO MARGULIES and OSCAR J. FRIEND

  WHY I SELECTED ROBOT AL 76 GOES ASTRAY

  I am very pleased with the current furore over what Professor Norbert Wiener of M.I.T. calls “cybernetics.” It is the science of “thinking” machines and is, undoubtedly, the theoretical basis for the eventual positronic robot. I have written nine robot stories, and I wrote all nine before I heard of the science, so anything about my robotic conceptions that doesn’t fit the rigorous math of Professor Wiener must be forgiven me. (Another reason for forgiveness—but one I am not anxious to publicize—is that I don’t understand the mathematics even after having looked at his book.)

  Anyway, the reason I choose Robot AL 76 goes astray from among the rest of the robot yarns for inclusion here is that it’s the light-hearted one. In a sense, it’s a self-satire. Of course, it’s a great day for an author when he becomes important enough to be satirized, and if I waited for a spontaneous gesture on the part of others, I could wait decades— centuries, if I lived long enough. So I took care of the satire myself and did it gently. This represents an ideal combination.

  Incidentally, all my robots have been nice guys. None of them have ever been Frankensteinian products. This is not because of reluctance on my part to utilize plot-cliches in order to turn an honest penny. It’s just that I can’t believe that a world run in the way we are running this one could possibly be harmed by being taken over by intelligent machines. In fact, that gives me an idea! The whole situation now might simply be a device on the part of God to institute— No! Why tell you now? If I write it up I can sell it for money.

  Well, I hope you smile at least once in reading the following pages. I don’t want it to be a complete waste of time.

  ISAAC ASIMOV

  Robot Al 76 Goes Astray - Isaac Asimov

  AL 76 Was Built for a Specific Job, but He Got Lost. However, He Knew His Job, and He Did It!

  Jonathan Quell’s eyes crinkled worriedly behind their rimless glasses as he charged through the door labeled “General Manager.”

  He slapped the folded paper in his hands upon the desk and panted, “Look at that, boss!”

  Sam Tobe juggled the cigar in his mouth from one cheek to the other, and looked. His hand went to his unshaven jaw and rasped along it. “Hell!” he exploded. “What are they talking about?”

  “They say we sent out five AL robots,” Quell explained, quite unnecessarily.

  “We sent six,” said Tobe.

  “Sure, six! But they only got five at the other end. They sent out the serial numbers and AL 76 is missing.”

  Tobe’s chair went over backwards as he heaved his thick bulk upright and went through the door as if he were on greased wheels. It was five hours afterwards—with the plant pulled apart from assembly rooms to vacuum chambers; with every one of the plant’s two hundred employees put through the third-degree mills; that a sweating, disheveled Tobe sent an emergency message to the Central Plant at Schenectady.

  And at the Central Plant, a sudden explosion of near-pa
nic took place. For the first time in the history of the United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corporation, a robot had escaped to the outer world. It wasn’t so much that the law forbade the presence of any robot on Earth outside a licensed factory of the Corporation. Laws could always be squared. What was much more to the point was the statement made by one of the research mathematicians.

  He said: “That robot was created to run a Disinto on the Moon. Its positronic brain was equipped for a Lunar environment, and only a Lunar environment. On Earth here it’s going to receive seventy-five umptyillion sense-impressions for which it was never prepared. There’s no telling what its reactions will be. No telling!” And he wiped a forehead that had suddenly gone wet, with the back of his hand.

  Within the hour, a stratoplane had left for the Virginia plant. The instructions were simple.

  “Get that robot, and get it fast!”

  AL 76 was confused! In fact, confusion was the only impression his delicate positronic brain retained. It had started when he had found himself in these strange surroundings. How it had come about, he no longer knew. Everything was mixed up.

  There was green underfoot, and brown shafts rose all about him with more green on top. And the sky was blue where it should have been black. The sun was all right, round and yellow and hot—but where was the powdery pumice rock underfoot; where were the huge cliff-like crater rings?

  There was only the green below and the blue above. The sounds that surrounded him were all strange. He had passed through running water that had reached his waist. It was blue and cold and wet. And when he passed people, as he did, occasionally, they were without the spacesuits they should have been wearing. When they saw him, they shouted and ran.

  One man had leveled a gun at him and the bullet had whistled past his head—and then he had run, too.

  He had no idea of how long he had been wandering before he finally stumbled upon Randolph Payne’s shack two miles out in the woods from the town of Hannaford. Randolph Payne himself, a screwdriver in one hand, a pipe in the other and a battered ruin of a vacuum cleaner between his knees, squatted outside the doorway.

  Payne was humming at the time, for he was a naturally happy-go-lucky soul—when at his shack. He had a more respectable dwelling place back in Hannaford, but that dwelling place was pretty largely occupied by his wife, a fact which he silently but sincerely regretted. Perhaps then, there was a sense of relief and freedom at such times when he found himself able to retire to his “special de-luxe doghouse” where he could smoke in peace and attend to his hobby of re-servicing household appliances.

  It wasn’t much of a hobby, but sometimes someone would bring out a radio or an alarm clock and the money he would get paid for juggling its insides was the only money he ever got that didn’t pass in driblets through his spouse’s niggardly hands.

  This vacuum cleaner, for instance, would bring in an easy six bits.

  At the thought, he broke into song, raised his eyes, and broke into a sweat. The song choked off, the eyes popped, and the sweat became more intense. He tried to stand up as a preliminary to running like hell—but he couldn’t get his legs to cooperate.

  And then AL 76 had squatted down next to him, and said, “Say, why did all the rest of them run?”

  Payne knew damn well why they all ran, but the gurgle that issued from his diaphragm didn’t show it. He tried to inch away from the robot.

  AL 76 continued in an aggrieved tone, “One of them even took a shot at me. An inch to the left and he would have scratched my chest plates.”

  “M—must have b—been a nut,” stammered Payne.

  “That’s possible.” The robot’s voice grew more confidential. “Listen, what’s wrong with everything?”

  Payne looked hurriedly about. It had struck him that the robot spoke in a remarkably mild tone for one so heavily and brutally metallic in appearance. It also struck him that he had heard somewhere that robots were mentally incapable of harming human beings. He relaxed a bit.

  “There’s nothing wrong with anything.”

  “Isn’t there?” AL 76 eyed him accusingly. “You’re all wrong. Where’s your spacesuit?”

  “I haven’t got any.”

  “Then why aren’t you dead?”

  That stopped Payne, “Well—I don’t know.”

  “See!” said the robot, triumphantly, “there’s something wrong with everything. Where’s Mt. Copernicus? Where’s Lunar Station 17? And where’s my Disinto? I want to get to work, I do.” He seemed perturbed, and his voice shook as he continued. “I’ve been going about for hours trying to get someone to tell me where my Disinto is, but they all run away. By now, I’m probably way behind schedule and the Sectional Executive will be as sore as blazes. This is a fine situation.”

  Slowly, Payne unscrambled the stew in which his brain found itself and said, “Listen, what do they call you?”

  “My serial number is AL 76.”

  “All right. A1 is good enough for me. Now, Al, if you’re looking for Lunar Station 17, that’s on the Moon. See?”

  AL 76 nodded his head ponderously. “Sure. But I’ve been looking for it—”

  “But it’s on the Moon. This isn’t the Moon.”

  It was the robot’s turn to become confused. He watched Payne for a speculative moment and then said slowly, “What do you mean this isn’t the Moon? Of course it’s the Moon. Because if it isn’t the Moon, what is it? Huh? Answer me that.”

  Payne made a funny sound in his throat and breathed hard. He pointed a finger at the robot and shook it. “Look,” he said—and then the brilliant idea of the century struck him, and he finished with a strangled, “Wow!”

  AL 76 eyed him censoriously. “That isn’t an answer. I think I have a right to a civil answer if I ask a civil question.”

  Payne wasn’t listening. He was still marveling at himself. Why, it was as plain as day. This robot was one built for the Moon that had somehow gotten loose on Earth. Naturally it would be all mixed up, because its positronic brain had been geared exclusively for a lunar environment, making its Earthly surroundings entirely meaningless.

  And now if he could only keep the robot here—until he could get in touch with the men at the factory in Petersboro. Why, robots were worth money. The cheapest cost $50,000, he had once heard, and some of them ran into millions. Think of the reward!

  Man, oh, man, think of the reward! And every cent for himself. Not as much as a quarter of a snifter of a plugged nickel for Mirandy. Jumpin’ tootin’ blazes, no!

  He rose to his feet at last, “Al,” he said. “You and I are buddies! Pals! I love you like a brother.” He thrust out a hand, “Shake!”

  The robot swallowed up the offered hand in a metal paw and squeezed it gently. He didn’t quite understand. “Does that mean you’ll tell me how to -get to Lunar Station 17.”

  Payne was a trifle disconcerted, “N—no, not exactly. As a matter of fact, I like you so much, I want you to stay here with me a while.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t do that. I’ve got to get to work.” He added gloomily, “How would you like to be falling behind your quota hour by hour and minute by minute? I want to work. I’ve got to work.”

  Payne thought sourly that there was no accounting for tastes, and said, “All right, then I’ll explain something to you—because I can see from the looks of you that you’re an intelligent person. I’ve had orders from your Sectional Executive, and he wants me to keep you here for a while. Till he sends for you, in fact.”

  “What for?” asked AL 76, suspiciously.

  “I can’t say. It’s secret government stuff.” Payne prayed inwardly and fervently, that the robot would swallow this. Some robots were damned clever, he knew, but this looked like one of the early models.

  While he prayed, AL 76 considered. The robot’s brain, adjusted to the handling of a Disinto on the Moon, was not at its best when engaged in abstract thought, but, just the same, ever since he had gotten lost, AL 76 had found his thought processes bec
oming stranger. The alien surroundings did something to him.

  His next remark was almost shrewd. He said, slyly, “What’s my Sectional Executive’s name?”

  Payne gulped and thought rapidly. “Al,” he said, in a pained fashion, “you hurt me with this suspicion. I cant tell you his name. The trees have ears.”

  AL 76 inspected the tree next to him stolidly and said, “They have not.”

  “I know. What I mean is that spies are all around.”

  “Spies?”

  “Yes. You know, bad people that want to destroy Lunar Station 17.”

  “What for?”

  “Because they’re bad. And they want to destroy you, and that’s why you’ve got to stay here for a while, so they can’t find you.”

  “But—but I’ve got to have a Disinto. I mustn’t fall behind my quota.”

  “You will have. You will have.” Payne promised earnestly, and just as earnestly damned the robot’s one-track mind. “They’re going to send one out tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow.” That would be plenty of time to get the men from the factory out here and collect beautiful green heaps of hundred-dollar bills.

  But AL 76 grew only the more stubborn under the distressing impingement of the strange world all about him upon his thinking mechanism.

  “No,” he said. “I’ve got to have a Disinto now.” Stiffly, he straightened his joints, jerking erect. “I’d better look for it some more.”

  Payne swarmed after and grabbed a cold, hard elbow. “Listen,” he squealed. “You’ve got to stay—”

  And something in the robot’s mind clicked. All the strangeness surrounding him collected itself into one globule, exploded, and left a brain ticking with a curiously increased efficiency. He whirled on Payne. “I tell you what. I can build a Disinto right here.—and then I can work it.”